Wednesday, 19 October 2011

It is a myth that the Trinity is difficult to understand and should be left to the theologians. The arrival of Jesus as a human was the moment when the Trinity became accessible to us all. Through belief in Jesus we are told in the bible that we have full access into the Throne room, the veil has been torn. So it does not therefore add up that we cannot discover the truth about the Trinity, it also says in Colossians that we have Christ dwelling within us, in Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit and in John, Jesus prays that we will have full unity with the father as he has unity with him. Colossians goes on to say that all the fullness of the deity is in Christ and we too have been given the fullness. So looking at scripture our access to the Trinity can be externally, as in walking through the veil, and internally on the basis that it is within us which leads me to conclude that understanding the Trinity is not just for the professionals but for all of us.

My reading of scripture suggests that God likes the idea of us being with him, wants us to discover more about him and the same can be said for Jesus and the Holy Spirit. If we believe only the one scripture, ‘Gods ways are higher than our ways’ regarding understanding God and then settle for only the one verse and use it for justifying why we can’t understand the Trinity, how do we then align scriptures such as; ‘we have the mind of Christ’, ‘fully reconciled to God’, ‘co-heirs with Christ’ and ‘you have been given fullness in Christ’?

There is a discovery to be made, an adventure to go on where the secrets of God are revealed to his children – that is you and me. God is relational; he lives in relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and thanks to all that Jesus accomplished on the cross also with us. He is not a distant deity floating on a cloud somewhere playing chess with humanity completely out of reach and unfathomable. 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 sets out some good words to inspire us that understanding God is possible through his Spirit. No training necessary, no good report card necessary, a free gift of God’s own Spirit.

I am not saying that we will fully understand everything about God, that would make us God, but I think we have been put off learning about the Trinity on the basis that it’s just too hard for us mere mortals. One more lie from the enemy that we perpetuate through certain beliefs; some people have a better relationship with God than us, some people are more gifted to understand God than us, some people are more favoured by God, some people find it easier to understand deep theological mysteries like the Trinity, and so we miss out on the treasures available to us. The stories in the bible show person after person understanding so much without any teaching, without a mentor, or a leader/priest, even a bible! John the Baptist would have been an interesting character in Sunday school! We too can understand the Trinity, how they work together, what that kind of relationship looks like and where/how/ do we fit into their relationship.

Somewhere we lost the ability to learn about God for ourselves, to hear from God directly. Our need to send somebody else wasn’t left in the desert with Moses and the Israelites. In any other of our relationships we do not accept third hand information, imagine being married and only talking to your partner through a third party. That only tends to happen with the relationship is either brand new – ‘my mate says will you go out with him’ or when it has totally broken down ‘tell the applicant that the respondent in the divorce wants the house’. It is nonsense and yet this can be our relationship with the Trinity. People become dependent on their leaders to access God for them, read a million books about God, watch God TV to hear what others have discovered, ask the prophetic/ministry team to find out what God thinks about them, spend hours in mental distress because they believe hearing from God is so difficult and there is a need for accuracy. So in amongst our desire to send someone else we have traded our relationship and live a third party one instead. We think the bible is too difficult for us to understand and yet we have its author living inside us. We think we are so distant from God that he can’t hear us. We think we are ‘in sin’ and therefore cannot now here from God as opposed to the truth that we are ‘in Christ’ and therefore can hear directly from God anything that we want an answer to. We make comments like – ‘oh when I get to heaven I’ve got so many questions for God when I get there’, according to scripture you are seated in heavenly places, why not ask now?

The time is gone for the special man with the special ministry with the next best impartation, the cat is out of the bag or the revelation of Christ in you is being declared. The full gospel is once again being preached, the gospel that tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what Jesus did at the cross. The truth that on the cross Jesus dealt the death blow to our sinful nature and brought full reconciliation to God. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you are now included in Him, you are in Christ and therefore you have full access to the full Trinity. Now you have been co-crucified your sinful nature has died and you are no longer subject to sin and cannot therefore become distant from God because of sin. You do not bungee jump in and out of your relationship with God and he does not find you favourable one day and difficult the next. He is not hiding from you hoping that you one day you will find him, if you pray really hard/loud/consistently/earnestly and search 24/7 for him, showing him enough passion and ensuring you don’t do anything that is naughty otherwise he will have to go and hide again. How can he hide when he is inside you? He does not fully reveal everything about himself to us in one go as we would explode but this is not to be confused with hiding from us. He does not live in a desert or send us into one because Jesus already went into the desert for us. He does not give us the silent treatment to make us love him or search for him more, he does not punish us or withhold anything from us. The full outrageous gospel is that we have been given everything, have access to everything and have been restored into a full relationship with all of the Trinity.

The truth of the gospel is that we have now been twinned with Jesus, he is our twin-brother, he is our identity, and everything we are is dependent on everything he is. We have been co-everything with Christ. Co-crucified, co-resurrected and co-heirs. Our relationship with God is fully dependant on Jesus’ relationship with God, co-linked, integrated into, he is in us and we are in him. We totally belong to him, he has purchased us, paid full price for us and adopted us into the family. The Spirit of adoption confirms it and we only need to believe it.

Even here we have been hoodwinked that some have more belief than others, more faith to believe than others and yet even our faith is a gift given to us by God. Faith is not spelt R.I.S.K., it is spelt G.I.F.T.! All we are required to do is say ‘Yes’ to what Jesus has already done for us. Our agreement is all that is needed. He gives us the faith to believe in Jesus, he gives us the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us and to remind us of all truth and he has done everything necessary for us to be fully reconciled to him.

The gospel has the power to set us free, and not just from our sinful nature, it will also set us free to believe that we are completely in Christ and live in the midst of the Trinity.